Filed under: Personal Mission Statement

Ideas Worth Spreading…For Kids

Empowering Kidzmet Kids to transform their thoughts and ideas into actions that can make their world and community a better place.

Designed for 9-12 year olds, this NEW Santa Barbara area enrichment club will be grounded in shedding light on the causes closest to our hearts while developing both the unique strengths of each participant and critical 21st Century success skills like collaboration, critical thinking, effective communication, awareness building, problem solving, time management, and project planning.

Registration Closed for Winter Session

About the Instructor

Jen Lilienstein, multi-award winning author, businesswoman, and Kidzmet Founder will lead each class. Jen’s background combines 20+ years of marketing, advertising, writing, and speaking with a passion for celebrating, embracing, and nurturing kids’ unique learning strengths. A former UC Regents Scholar that earned her Bachelor’s degree from UC Irvine at 19, Jen has won a multitude of awards for her work with Kidzmet.com the past 5 years, including:

being named one of Startup Nation’s Leading Moms in Business 2010,

the 2011 Parent Tested Parent Approved award for Kidzmet,

the 2012 National Parenting Center’s Award for her Kidzmet work,

the MIT Enterprise Forum audience award in 2013,

the Spring 2013 Pinnacle Award for Best Parenting and Family Book, and

the Summer 2014 Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award for A Parent’s Playbook for Learning.

At home, Jen is Mom to an extraverted-intuitive daughter who has a passion for the arts and an introverted-sensing son who is enthralled with nature and engineering.

I think we’ve all be inspired by movies like “Pay It Forward”, but many times don’t think that we can have that kind of large scale impact on our country or world. The reality is that when you combine passion with perseverance, we are capable of much more than we ever dreamed.

And the same goes for our kids. Over the course of the past month on Kidzmet, we set out to offer kids a step-by-step guide to honing in on a personal mission statement and how to begin sharing that mission and infectious enthusiasm with their communities, countries and even our world.

When kids start to reveal new findings rather than report on what’s already been discovered…

When they start to self-direct learning based on their own personal passions…

When they start to realize that it’s not a *single* type of intelligence that’s needed to be successful in pretty much any career you can think of, but a *puree* of several—if not all—of the multiple intelligences used in concert with each other…

That’s when learning truly has the potential to become fun and exciting for kids.

Talk to each other about what your experience was with your responsibilities from Part 4. Did everyone do what they said they were going to do? Did some people do more than they had planned?

Analyze your results by writing down these 3 numbers for each of the different techniques you and your fellow advocates tried:

How many people were you able to connect with about your mission?

How many of those people could understand why it’s important to you…and should be to them.

Use a calculator to divide the number of people you were able to inspire by the number of people you were able to connect with.

Talk about which techniques were most effective in terms of:

Reach (how many people you were able to connect with using that technique)

Conversion rate (what percentage of people you were able to get excited about your mission using that technique)

Evangelist rate (the number of new “advocates” you were able to get to join your meeting as a result of using that technique)

What techniques to “get the word out” do you want to try this time around? Will you use the same ones? Do you want to try new ones? Has your mission changed course as a result of your efforts? Has your focus narrowed or broadened?

Before you go home, be sure to set a date and time for your next small group meeting.

Return to Part 1 with your growing group of advocates and spread the word about what’s important to you to even more people.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are helping to change the world for the better in ways that are important to you. You should be extremely proud of yourself.

Attend a trade show or conference with some of your fellow advocates and/or a parent that is in alignment with your mission.

(Maybe one of your new email pen pals will also be attending and you can meet!)

Walk the exhibit floor and see what other people are doing that you could work into your plans.

Talk to the people at the booths that are interesting to you and tell them about what you are doing. Get their feedback on other things you might want to try to get the word out or how your two groups could work together to accomplish your goals.

Do you want people sitting in chairs facing you at the front (e.g. stage/audience)

Do you want people sitting in chairs in a round circle?

Do you want people standing up and talking to each other?

Do you want a combination of a couple of the event formats above?

Next, think about how you will manage conversation at the event.

Will you have people raise their hands to speak?

Will you let them talk as needed?

Will you have conversation “sticks” that people can use to show who’s up next to talk?

Will you impose time limits on how much one person can speak?

How will you record people’s ideas?

Will you tape record them?

Will you video tape them?

Will you have someone write them down on a sheet of paper?

Will you have someone write them down on a chalkboard, whiteboard or easel?

It’s finally time for your event!
At your gathering, talk with others about how you can work together to affect change in this regard. Remind people how small changes on behalf of one or more people can create a positive chain of events that ultimately results in a BIG change.

Some people call this concept the “butterfly effect”…others call it a “ripple effect”…still others call it a “domino effect”.

Think about the small changes you are all willing to make individually and as a group.

Will you talk to at least one person a day about your mission?

Will you talk to your school PTA about it?

Will you write a letter or email to your congressional representative, senator or the president?

Will you create a petition?

Will you create a YouTube video about it?

How about a blog, Facebook group or a Twitter account?

Is it a subject that your parents could post flyers about at work?

Is it something that you want to talk to someone about at a local museum or bookstore?

Do you want to do more research about it online and reach out to more influential people and get their suggestions?

Decide who will be responsible for which tasks. How will you evaluate the results of each effort? Then, set a date with those interested for your next meet-up. Encourage each other to find ONE more friend to bring to your next meeting.